Together Retro Game Club: Zoop

Zoop is kind of a hard one to classify. It is an arcade puzzle game in the vein of Taito’s Plotting that was released on most every console at the time (4th generation). Most gamers have heard of the title but have not played it because it was released in 1995. It is one of the very few games that Hookstone created and one of the handful that Viacom published. So lets get to piloting our little triangle.

History

Not much is known about the development of Zoop. It was created by Hookstone (Super Gameboy version of Alfred Chicken and Sentinel Returns) which was dissolved in the mid 90s and its members formed what is now Rockstar Leeds. There are small pockets of dedicated fans, but overall it, and its company, did not make a big impact on the gaming industry.

Legacy

Viacom had hoped that Zoop would be the next Tetris. They combined elements of several popular puzzle games and had a solid idea, it just fell flat on the industry. “Americas Largest Killer of Time” was overshadowed by other titles released in 1995 – Chrono Trigger, Descent, Mario World 2, the Virtual Boy, etc. While it did not die off completely, in that it still has a cult following in the puzzle gaming world, it never really caught on with the general public. Blockbuster even tried allowing free rentals of the game and it still never caught on. It did however gain enough of a following to be a premier title for the Okama Gamesphere in the South Park universe

1995:

SNES

Genesis/Megadrive

Gameboy

Game Gear

PC

Saturn

Jaguar

Playstation

Why We Chose Zoop

Zoop is one of those games that everyone has heard of but few have really given a fair chance. The game really is a solid puzzle title. It has the right mix of everything needed to be a classic except it is missing that “just one more game” factor that makes for an excellent puzzle game. We thought it was time to try and get others to give it a go.

Controls

Dpad – Move triangle
Button – shoot/exchange triangle

Recommended Ports

SNES, Genesis, and Jaguar are typically the three most popular ports, with PSX being a close fourth. The Portable versions are fairly terrible and the PC version suffers from issues in dos box. It just takes a good bit to get going.

Together Retro Discussion

Instead of posting in the comments section of the blog, we will be using the forum for all of our discussion in order to keep things more organized. So play Zoop and talk to us about your thoughts and play experiences in the forums. We want to know your favorite parts, your successes and your failures.Discuss The Game In The Forum